Just over a week until the UK VMUG 2016. This will be my first year in attendance and after a really good VMworld Barcelona I’m looking forward to it. Whilst only a single day (if you excluded the vCurry the night before) I am hoping it will be successful in capturing the essence of VMworld. There seemed to be a big focus on VMware User Group in the VMware EMEA Solution Exchange this year, both around promotion of the “free to join” standard membership and the “pay for” VMUG Advantage membership.

Written by Christopher Lewis on November 7, 2016 .

VMware VMUG UK VMUG vExpert

The Series Configuring SSL certificates for vRA 7.x (inc vRO) Replacing the Appliance Management Site Certificate for vRealize Automation Replacing the Control Center Certificate on an embedded vRO instance Replacing the Package Signing Certificate in vRO 7 Replacing the Certificate This is the final post in a series tackling the extra certificates you may want to replace once you have deployed vRealize Automation. This is relatively straightforward to accomplish, but @SpasKaloferov covers this well in his article http://kaloferov.

Written by Christopher Lewis on November 5, 2016 .

VMware vRealize Automation vRealize Orchestrator Certificates

The Series Configuring SSL certificates for vRA 7.x (inc vRO) Replacing the Appliance Management Site Certificate for vRealize Automation Replacing the Control Center Certificate on an embedded vRO instance Replacing the Package Signing Certificate in vRO 7 Replacing the Certificate This is the third post in a series tackling the extra certificates you may want to replace once you have deployed vRealize Automation. There are plenty of articles on changing the SSL certificate for this website https://vra-fqdn:8283/vco-vcoconfigurator on an External instance of vRealize Orchestrator, most notably is @SpasKaloferov ’s post http://kaloferov.

Written by Christopher Lewis on November 5, 2016 .

VMware vRealize Automation vRealize Orchestrator Certificates

The Series Configuring SSL certificates for vRA 7.x (inc vRO) Replacing the Appliance Management Site Certificate for vRealize Automation Replacing the Control Center Certificate on an embedded vRO instance Replacing the Package Signing Certificate in vRO 7 Replacing the Certificate This is the second post in a series tackling the extra certificates you may want to replace once you have deployed vRealize Automation. After a quick look around the VMware Documentation Center and I found the article for replacing the VAMI certificate ( https://vra.

Written by Christopher Lewis on November 5, 2016 .

VMware vRealize vRealize Automation Certificates

So when deploying vRealize Automation, I can be bit OCD when it comes to certificates and websites. Where possible/plausible, I like to make sure all of the sites in the deployment have trusted certificates especially if there is a root CA in play (after all they’re free certificates right?). After deploying the VMware vRealize Automation 7.x appliance from the OVA (that’s the easy bit) and successfully (normally on the second/third attempt) running through the deployment wizard to deploy a Medium distributed environment.

Written by Christopher Lewis on November 5, 2016 .

vRealize vRealize Automation vRealize Orchestrator Certificates

So we all know that generating SSL certificates are something out of the Dark Arts and unforgivable spells akin to the wizarding world of Harry Potter. So the following is a quick post on how to take the certificate (.cer or .crt file) from the Certificate Authority CA, combine it with the RSA Private Key (.key file) and the Root CA Chain (another .cer/.crt file) to firstly create the intermediate Personal Exchange Format (PFX) file and finally create the Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) File.

Written by Christopher Lewis on November 5, 2016 .

SSL Certificates VMware vRealize Automation vRealize Orchestrator

OK so you’ve finally deployed vRealize Automation 7.x and you’re pretty chuffed with yourself because it only two 2 rollbacks on the Windows VMs, a new VA deployment and some on the fly configuration tweaks to get it working… You’re #Awesome. You’re following VMware best practice and you have your embedded vRealize Orchestrator instance on your vRealize Automation Virtual Appliance(s). You #RockThisWorld You’re on a role. but now you now have to install a new plugin for vRealize Orchestrator (lets say for Infoblox IPAM or F5 LTM), so you try https://vra.

Written by Christopher Lewis on November 4, 2016 .

VMware vRealize vRealize Automation vRealize Orchestrator

VMware Education have finally announced the GA of the VCAP6-CMA Deploy Exam. I better get studying! http://blogs.vmware.com/education/2016/11/vcap6-cma-deploy-exam-now-available.html

Written by Christopher Lewis on November 4, 2016 .

VMware VCAP VCIX VCAP6-CMA VCIX6-CMA

The last day of VMworld came along sooner than I expected. I decided to drop most of my sessions and just chill out in the hang space. Why did I drop the last few sessions? because I’d finally realised I’d been doing VMworld all wrong… It dawned on me that whilst over the last 3 days the sessions I had attended re-enforced by knowledge, it didn’t (on the whole) enhance it.

Written by Christopher Lewis on October 25, 2016 .

VMware VMworld VMworld 2016 Barcelona

Wednesday night (like most other nights) at VMworld is PARTY night! However this night was the VMware Customer Appreciation Party night, where customers, vendors and partners can come together to enjoy free food, free wacky sunglasses and free entertainment (and most importantly feel appreciated). It definitely had an old-school american theme/vibe with Hot Dogs, Burgers and Ice cream stand littered around the General Session hall. A chance for those with hair to let it down and bond with our newly found friends in the spirit of the VMware Community!

Written by Christopher Lewis on October 24, 2016 .

VMware VMworld VMworld 2016 Barcelona